Hi everyone,
I was wondering if we could share some tips for making music in modern daws completely off the grid. think using them as glorified tape machines without snap and quantize etc pp, in the spirit of music production pre-grid, where you would often have slightly varying bpm between different sections and often a much freer feel. Maybe some of those that have experience with some of those pre-grid techniques, what are some best practices? What instruments do you start with? How would your workflow change? How to best handle midi now? etc. Obviously good musicianship is at the very start of all of this, being able to keep tempo internally. I am really interested in this, I just don't know the best way to go about it other than just turning the grid off and winging it. Much appreciated!
Writing and Producing Off the Grid: tips needed
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 87 posts since 31 May, 2017 from Berlin
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 87 posts since 31 May, 2017 from Berlin
A more recent example is Burial, who allegedly did all his recording in Soundforge without any grid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC16FJTI6XM
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- KVRAF
- 15273 posts since 8 Mar, 2005 from Utrecht, Holland
Nothing to it, just do it. There's no rocket science involved or big hurdles to overcome. You can record & manipulate audio and midi in every linear DAW. It has been done for decades with tape. Just don't pay any attention to the grid. If your DAW imposes a grid rigidly and it really gets in your way: vote with your feet and look for another DAW that does support your way of working.
There's only one anecdote I'd like to share. I had a live recording of my band and wanted to add a drum machine afterwards while the tempo was drifting slowly in the range 114 - 119 bpm. First I tried to record the drum machine while adjusting the tempo of it in real time, but that was too far off. I reacted too late - once I could sense the timing was off it's too late already to compensate.
So I applied another technique: I had the 2-bar drum loop recorded at all five tempos within this range, and saved as audio snippets in my DAW - then my DAW was CoolEditPro. Constructing the drum machine track was simple: measure the current length of 2-bars of us performing and paste the loop best fitting to that.
There's only one anecdote I'd like to share. I had a live recording of my band and wanted to add a drum machine afterwards while the tempo was drifting slowly in the range 114 - 119 bpm. First I tried to record the drum machine while adjusting the tempo of it in real time, but that was too far off. I reacted too late - once I could sense the timing was off it's too late already to compensate.
So I applied another technique: I had the 2-bar drum loop recorded at all five tempos within this range, and saved as audio snippets in my DAW - then my DAW was CoolEditPro. Constructing the drum machine track was simple: measure the current length of 2-bars of us performing and paste the loop best fitting to that.
Last edited by BertKoor on Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
We are the KVR collective. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. 
My MusicCalc is served over https!!
My MusicCalc is served over https!!
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- KVRAF
- 6426 posts since 22 Jan, 2005 from Sweden
There is also hybrid way of working
- record without metronome or grid as the first takes
- record further listening to what you did so far
- if wanting to get assistance from grid later, that can be aligned later in most daws
- In Cakewalk you just put marker in a spot, and tell which bar that is to be starting there.
- just remember that any midi clips are anchored in time, not musical to grid, so when changing grid nothing changes in the recorded parts.
For certain situations like when improvising to video loaded result become like described pretty much.
- And I put markers, anchored in timeline(not grid), to quickly get to certain parts.
- Almost do all navigation in timeline to markers.
- For video related to scenes, but can be anything like verse, chorus, break etc.
So skip grid, and use markers where appropriate instead works well.
- record without metronome or grid as the first takes
- record further listening to what you did so far
- if wanting to get assistance from grid later, that can be aligned later in most daws
- In Cakewalk you just put marker in a spot, and tell which bar that is to be starting there.
- just remember that any midi clips are anchored in time, not musical to grid, so when changing grid nothing changes in the recorded parts.
For certain situations like when improvising to video loaded result become like described pretty much.
- And I put markers, anchored in timeline(not grid), to quickly get to certain parts.
- Almost do all navigation in timeline to markers.
- For video related to scenes, but can be anything like verse, chorus, break etc.
So skip grid, and use markers where appropriate instead works well.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 87 posts since 31 May, 2017 from Berlin
Thank you! Great info so far, my biggest hurdle yet is that I am solid on guitar and bass, not so much on inputting drums consistently. I think I might try to sketch out a song on guitar and then add others stuff on top of that. It’s just hard to stay somewhat consistent without drums to listen for, even if they are loose
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- KVRAF
- 6426 posts since 22 Jan, 2005 from Sweden
Before getting eDrums I used keyboard to do drums in realtime listening to other stuff.
First one midi track recorded - twohanded hihat maybe, just hitting F# or A#.
With expression pedal playing with openness hh, so CC#11 exchanged to CC#01 or CC#04 what ever drums plugin support. This can be done separately too on another track.
Then another midi track - twohanded kick+snare and some fills even.
Dividing like this, two things at same time only, is rather fast to get enough bars ok sounding.
First one midi track recorded - twohanded hihat maybe, just hitting F# or A#.
With expression pedal playing with openness hh, so CC#11 exchanged to CC#01 or CC#04 what ever drums plugin support. This can be done separately too on another track.
Then another midi track - twohanded kick+snare and some fills even.
Dividing like this, two things at same time only, is rather fast to get enough bars ok sounding.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 87 posts since 31 May, 2017 from Berlin
ah! splitting the kit up into several takes is a great approach to keep time consistent! hadn't thought of that even though i do passes for other stuff.
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- Banned
- 1780 posts since 26 Aug, 2012
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- addled muppet weed
- 105871 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
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- addled muppet weed
- 105871 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
i recently got in to bidule.paradisebunny wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:56 am Hi everyone,
I was wondering if we could share some tips for making music in modern daws completely off the grid. think using them as glorified tape machines without snap and quantize etc pp, in the spirit of music production pre-grid, where you would often have slightly varying bpm between different sections and often a much freer feel. Maybe some of those that have experience with some of those pre-grid techniques, what are some best practices? What instruments do you start with? How would your workflow change? How to best handle midi now? etc. Obviously good musicianship is at the very start of all of this, being able to keep tempo internally. I am really interested in this, I just don't know the best way to go about it other than just turning the grid off and winging it. Much appreciated!
i have yet to find "the grid". its what ive been looking for, for years!
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- KVRian
- 712 posts since 26 Jul, 2018 from Germany
Just turn snap-to-grid off, or turn it on when you need it. I don't think it's something that special, it's something you do, if the result is not organic enough for you. Joe Goddard use this technique at the beginning of this video below for his hihats....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEvBWJcjOK8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEvBWJcjOK8
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- KVRAF
- 3089 posts since 4 May, 2012
DAWs such as Reaper and Pro Tools are perfect for this kind of thing due to their beat mapping functionality: The grid can be adjusted using a semi-automatic process to keep time with live instruments and their natural drift.
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- KVRAF
- 3477 posts since 27 Dec, 2002 from North East England
It's not quite the same as I wasn't doing stuff with stable rhythm, but I used separate DAWs for arrangement and sound design/performance. In the arrangement DAW I'd only do basic things like volume automation and 'standard' track processing like compression and EQ. Everything else would be played/processed live in the other DAW while constantly recording to wav - snipping pieces out and bringing them over into the arrangement DAW. At the time I was using Audiomulch (which doesn't even have a piano roll) as the sound generating DAW and EnergyXT for editing and arrangement.
While that level of separation isn't exactly essential 15 years later, I think having access to everything as audio still is. In the case of Burial, it's probably bounced pieces of audio that keep time. I'd guess he pieces a short drum loop together freeform - just 4 beats or so - then bounces it and it essentially becomes the grid. Just because you're editing and arranging off the grid doesn't mean that there aren't tempo 'anchors' in there, if you know what I mean. You're adding them the moment you consolidate, copy and paste something.
Incidentally, there's a tiny moment in Burial's Chemz that stuck out for me as being very indicative of a gridless audio workflow producing idiosyncratic results. There's a repeated "so in love with you" vocal sample throughout the second section of Chemz, but there's a moment at 7.38 where he timestretches it, then time-compresses the following repetition. The end of the time-compressed one is at the exact point in the bar where the sample usually ends when played at normal speed. Keeping time by aligning the end-point of a sample rather than its beginning is exactly the kind of thing that makes no sense whatsoever in a sampler workflow, but seems reasonably intuitive and easy to do when you're moving pieces of audio around on a gridless timeline. It's such a tiny little thing in the grand scheme of the track, but it instantly jumped out as something I'm not used to hearing in dance music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGEy1nBUBuE
While that level of separation isn't exactly essential 15 years later, I think having access to everything as audio still is. In the case of Burial, it's probably bounced pieces of audio that keep time. I'd guess he pieces a short drum loop together freeform - just 4 beats or so - then bounces it and it essentially becomes the grid. Just because you're editing and arranging off the grid doesn't mean that there aren't tempo 'anchors' in there, if you know what I mean. You're adding them the moment you consolidate, copy and paste something.
Incidentally, there's a tiny moment in Burial's Chemz that stuck out for me as being very indicative of a gridless audio workflow producing idiosyncratic results. There's a repeated "so in love with you" vocal sample throughout the second section of Chemz, but there's a moment at 7.38 where he timestretches it, then time-compresses the following repetition. The end of the time-compressed one is at the exact point in the bar where the sample usually ends when played at normal speed. Keeping time by aligning the end-point of a sample rather than its beginning is exactly the kind of thing that makes no sense whatsoever in a sampler workflow, but seems reasonably intuitive and easy to do when you're moving pieces of audio around on a gridless timeline. It's such a tiny little thing in the grand scheme of the track, but it instantly jumped out as something I'm not used to hearing in dance music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGEy1nBUBuE
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- Banned
- 1780 posts since 26 Aug, 2012
cant make heads or tails of wha-your on about mate. ya dont saa-eem to be-a-makin' much sense 
